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Roger Parks
Rockwell Collins Personality
By: David K. Every
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May 05,2003
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 ot only did I work and learn a lot by working at Rockwell (Collins), but I worked with a few other "characters".
Now I've lived an interesting life, and been one of those people that things either happen to, or happen around. A lot of those experiences aren't necessarily things that I'd wish for; but heck, if I learn from them then they aren't a complete waste. Many that start hearing the extent of my life stories, start staring at me, agape in disbelief - or often just look at me with skepticism, and assume that I have to be a bull-shitter, because that doesn't happen to one person. Hey, that's their problem. I've lived a pretty bland life compared to some I know, and a few of those I worked with a Collins. Dr. Roger Parks was one of them.
           
Roger was my boss at Rockwell. We got along well from the start.
He was a Vietnam veteran, who was an ex-green beret (as if you are ever an "ex" special forces person), who spoke many languages, and had a fake knee because of it being shot out in the war. I was equally shell shocked as a hyper post-teen, ex-abused kid, martial artist that would jump like a cat at strange sounds. People accused me of having post-traumatic stress disorder. My friends used to love scaring me, from a distance, because I would leap so far and fast or fly into a fighting stance. I've mellowed since then, but I've always been an early riser, as was Roger.
The first time we came around the corner at Rockwell at 5:30 am, and scared the shit out of each other, and both dropped into our respective fighting stances out of reflex, we became friends. Of course he was a bad-ass that weighed about 3 of me, but that I had similar reactions as he did, bonded us.
 
He and I chatted, and he told me various stories of his past, as did I. His were more colorful at the time; and to this day. I understand some people's skepticism towards me, when upon hearing some of his tales I was thinking, "nahhh", or more likely "really?". Then an event happened while we were working together, that let me know we were kindred soles, and he had the same cloud (of things just happening to him) following him around, that I had my entire life. His was bigger.
One Monday, Roger was looking particularly glum. I was asking him about it. He was down because he'd been in a murder interrogation over the weekend. Gosh, and I'd only gone skydiving, had a malfunction and lived to tell about it.
He had a girl friend that was trying to straighten up, and she'd dumped her old boyfriend; who had a drinkin' and drugin' problem. The boyfriend was violent and she asked Roger to stay over. She was scared, and so on.
In the middle of the night, the boyfriend kicked in the front door. Roger, who was sleeping on the couch, drew his gun and put two through the ten-ring; sheer reflex. That means he double-tapped the guy with a .45, and dropped him dead in the doorway. I think the guy provides a valuable life lesson to the survivors about, "don't kick in doors where ex-special forces guys who still sleep with their guns might be". Or the much broader, "don't kick in doors". The police came, and they tend to frown on dead bodies.
Yes, Roger had a permit to carry; though you don't need one when you are inside your house. And yes, the body had a knife next to it by the time the cops got there. (I hear it had the knife with it when it came in). But the Cops still really don't like all the paperwork that a body means. They share the pain with long interrogations. Roger looked a little bushed.
In the end the shooting was righteous and nothing ever came of it (other than a funeral), and Roger was back to work on Monday at the regular time. But the old, "no good deed goes unpunished" thing still flashed through my mind about that whole situation. He placed himself in harms way; and suffered the consequences. And while it may have been righteous and the way he chose to deal with the situation, it always inspired me to think of the potential outcomes of giving or helping others; though I usually do it anyway.
 
Roger had gone through Medical training, and was going to be a Doctor. (I don't remember if this was before or after he'd gone into the military and had never asked). He'd done the whole Michael Crichton thing; of getting into his residency before dropping out. So he had the doctors sense of humor about gore; and was telling war stories about working in a trauma center in a bad area of NYC, long before Rudolph Giuliani cleaned up crime.
A lot of the stories just reminded me of both the fragility, and survivability of human life. There were stories about some poor sod, slipping on his steps, and just being DOA, and so on. Or how many people straining on the pot to bust a vessel and keel over, and so on.
There were the gory or kinky stories, like the guy who was getting oral sex from his girlfriend when she has a seizure and chews him to bits. Took me a while to trust after images of that one were in my minds eye. Or the really strange things people would get stuck inside them as various marital aides.
But there were also just stories that made you think. One I thought about long since, was of a guy that came in holding the back of his head, complaining that he had been knocked out and mugged just a couple blocks away. They look at his wound, and find a bullet hole. Someone had come up behind him, and shot him in the back of the head and taken his money. The bullet had gone into his cranium but either split the hemispheres or kind of traveled inside the skull, but had managed not to take out anything the guy needed. The bullet was lodged in the front, but hadn't exited. So they basically just relieved the pressure, and with some recovery, the guy lived just fine.
Another was of two guys brought in that were both bleeding all over the place; and while asking the bigger of the guys (who was perforated with like 6 gun shot wounds) what happened, he was cursing and pissed. Said something about the little spic pulled a gun on him and tried to rob him, so he pulled a knife. So the other guy shot him, so he stabbed him, so the other guy shot him again, so he kept stabbing him. In the end, the guy that was shot lived, the other did not. I kind of brought new meaning to the old cliche, about never bring a gun to a knife fight; or, um, the other way around. I was thinking, you should have just given him the money. Surgery and rehab is never a fun route to take.
All the stories were enlightening and opened up my eyes. There were some real life lessons in there, that I tried to get.
 
 Roger had his own "interesting" event with the DoD.
Sometimes, when you have a security clearance, you are given your own file cabinet or drawer that you are responsible for. It is obviously lockable, and supposed to be secured, and you have procedures about taking stuff out, and so on. And the procedures get more elaborate the more sensitive the data. The most annoying ones are when it can't leave a room, and you can only read anything if you have someone watching you (and making sure you aren't photographing anything). But most stuff is less secure than that, you just have to file it, and keep it locked.
Anyways, Roger wrote and spoke like 7 Languages; one of them Russian - he was Special Forces. This was during the height of the Cold War and Reagan's "evil empire" rhetoric (legitimate rhetoric, but rhetoric none-the-less). So in some pithy mood, Roger decided to labeled his entire file cabinet in Cyrillic (Russian); he figured he was being more secure, since most Americans don't read Russian, so would have a tougher time finding things, and he just had the bitter ironic sense of humor that I did. Either way, his files were labeled in Russian.
Well, one day the DoD did a spot audit, on his filing cabinet. Remember when I said the Air force has a limited sense of humor? The DoD often has less. They went ape, and had many people come in, and interviewed Roger and others. They were less than amused at a secured filing cabinet labeled in Russian.
   
Roger and I chatted for many months after I left; and I helped him with editing a fiction book he was writing for a while. But of course we lost touch after a few years. Which seems to be the case with most people at most of my consulting gigs; I really only kept in touch with one person (one of the SysAdmins), and that was because he became one of martial arts students, and we saw each other for years outside the office.
But it is always amusing to think back on the stories and experiences Roger had told, and remember that at Rockwell he was one of the tame ones. 
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